AustraliaPersonalities HandoutDebate & Discussion

Great Barrier Reef

You run an aquafarm growing oysters. You have been in business for over 10 years and employ 23 people to care for and harvest the oysters. You have already seen your profits cut in half since you started the business due to all the additional environmental restrictions and laws.

You are a commercial fisherman. You have been a fisherman your whole life, your father was a fisherman, your grandfather was a fisherman. Fishing along the reef is good. You are contented with the way things are.

You are a tour guide. You make your living giving scuba and snorkel tours along the Great Barrier reef. You are finding that to get to colorful areas of the reef you are having to go further and further from port. The areas of the reef nearest port are dead. You would like to help fix the reef and still make a living.

You are a marine biologist studying the reef. You can see the effects of pollution and the disturbance of man on the reef. You would like to pass laws keeping everyone off the reef except for scientists like yourself.

You own a farm. The only way to protect your crops from insects is to spray pesticides on them. You live five miles from the ocean so you don't see any problem with spraying. Yet people keep blaming you for killing the reef.

You are a tourist. You visit the reef every year on tour and have several excellent examples of reef coral at home. The reef is 1200 miles long so what harm is there in taking a small piece home as a souvenir. You would like to see the reef protected but do not want to lose your vacation spot.

You own an oil tanker traveling between Australia and Indonesia. When you get out away from port and out to sea you wash down your ship to get rid of all the spilled oil off the decks. There are on laws or regulations preventing this and every tanker captain does it.

You are a surfer. This is your love. You will do anything to protect the reef. The reef keeps out sharks and other predators from the prime surfing areas. You don't want resorts or hotels built since they bring in too many people who will get in the way of your surfing.

You are a bird watcher. The birds that exist in the wetlands near the reef can be found nowhere else in the world. Resorts and hotels are developing this land and destroying the habitat of your beloved birds.

You own a brand new resort hotel. You need the tourists to stay in business. Yes you did destroy some wetlands to create your resort but you had the permission of the government.

You are a bartender at the hotel. You left the city because you couldn't find work. You love living at the resort and make very good money. You really don't care about the reef but you need this job.

You are a conservationist. You want every thing to be the way nature made it.

You are a sport fisherman. You visit the area because of the great fishing. You would oppose anything that might stop or reduce the fishing.

You are a mine worker. The mine is very close to losing money. Any more regulations that raise the cost of mining and the mine will go out of business and you will lose your job.

You are an Aboriginal. Your people have hinted and fished on this land for thousands of years. You need to continue your peoples traditions without interference.

You are a tour guide. You operate eco-tours whereby using a glass bottomed boat tourists can see the reef without ever touching it. Business has been getting better every year. You have noticed that each year more and more of the reef is destroyed or dying.

You are a scuba diver. You travel the world looking for the best places to dive. You never destroy or interfere with any of the natural habitats you see. You always take pictures and have actually sold many of these pictures to magazines. You want the reef to remain the way it has always been.

You are the harbor master. If the reef grows it might close the port. If the port closes many people will lose their job. You routinely authorize divers to destroy the part of the reef nearest the port entrance.

You work in a gift shop near the resort. You make a lot of money selling pieces of coral, shells and sharks teeth to tourists. You are happy with the way things are.

You own the waste treatment plant. You are already operating at capacity. You cannot afford to build more treatment facilities yet any more growth in the area will cause waste to go untreated into the sea.

You have just bought a beach house. You want to keep the resorts and condominiums out and the price of real estate high. You don't want cheap housing to ruin the neighborhood.

You own a small oceanfront restaurant. With the new resorts business is so good you want to expand.

You work for a pharmaceutical company that makes an asthma medicine out of the coral. You need large segments of coral to produce this medicine.

You are retired. Reef walking is one of your major hobbies. Without it you don't know what you would do.

You are a business person. You like to go out on your boat on the weekends and anchor out on the reef and just relax. You don't like the government telling you where you can go.

You have just graduated and are spending a year traveling the world. You camp out on the beach and just bum around. You don't see what the big fuss is all about.